Quote:A Chicago Tribune article describes the Resi’s “nightly ‘spectacular’—‘a dancing water ballet’ with jets of water rising and falling to a recorded symphony while colored lights flash.” The water-jet ballet, now known as a “Waltzing Water,” began in 1928 and drew in many visitors.

But the Tribune article refers to the system of phones and pneumatic tubes at each table as the Resi’s “big lure.”

Phones were fixed to individual tables, and above many was a lighted number. Singles needed only to look around the room until a fetching stranger caught their eye, note the number, and then direct a message to that table. “Lonesome Americans, and others, can call or send a note to equally lonesome women who look like they would enjoy company,” the article noted.

In 1931, during the heyday of this across-the-nightclub flirtation, The Berliner Herold described the process of receiving a call from an amorous stranger: “the tabletop telephones buzzed, and the acquaintance with the blonde, raven-haired or redheaded, monocle-wearing beauty was made, one was no longer alone, and had twice as much fun.”

Similar systems thrived at the Femina, the larger of the two nightclubs, which boasted more than 2,000 seats, “two large bars and a smaller one in the vestibule, in addition to three orchestras, a hydraulic dance floor,” and over 225 table telephones, which were accompanied by instructions in both German and English.

But for those who were too shy to pick up the phone, the pneumatic tubes offered a perfect alternative. The tubes were built into the handrails, and one was located at each table. The nightclub provided paper on which to scrawl notes. Patrons only had to specify where they wanted their missives sent. Like messaging on a dating app, but with—you know—tubes.

At the Resi, many provocative notes were passed around, but eager flirters needed to be careful—“messages sent by tube [were] checked by female ‘censors’ in the switchboard room” in an early form of comment moderation.

The pneumatic tube system existed for decades, and Americans who visited Berlin after World War II remember it fondly.

Today, many fictionalized accounts memorialize it: Then We Take Berlin by John Lawton describes how visitors could “write a message, stick it in the snake’s head, yank on the handle and the pneumatic tube would whisk it up to the top gallery and they’d redirect it to the right table.” (Cabaret, meanwhile, tributes the table phone system in “The Telephone Song.”)  Ian McEwan’s novel The Innocent also offers an evocative tribute. When his main character, Leonard, visits a fictionalized version of the Resi nightclub, the protagonist finds a pamphlet that boasts the establishment’s “Modern Table-Phone-System” and “Pneumatic-Table-Mail-Service,” which sends “every night thousands of letters or little presents from one visitor to another.”

This “table mail service” was real, and allowed patrons to send more than just a handwritten note to that handsome stranger across the way. The Resi offered a long menu of gifts that visitors could dispatch via pneumatic tube—including perfume bottles, cigar cutters, travel plans, and, according to one source, cocaine. [PDF pg 15]

More at Atlas Obscura

Quote:It was Monday June 2, 1975, and Lancashire had returned to Buxton, where the opening day's play had been marked by an astonishing innings from the West Indian star Clive Lloyd, before a 400-mile round trip down to Essex for a John Player League fixture on the Sunday.

Simmons had time to relax a little that morning. First a reviving cup of tea, brought to their room by the Spanish sounding waiter. What followed was like a scene from Fawlty Towers.

"Our room overlooked the main street," recalled Simmons. "Me and Yosser were still in bed and the curtains were drawn. I could see a bit of blue sky but when the waiter came in, I casually asked him what the weather was like. In broken English he said: ‘It snow’.

"We sent him packing and I got up and pulled the curtains right back and then of course that's when I saw it. Snow! The second of June. I said: 'Bloody hell Yosser he's right - it's been snowing."'

Hughes remembered: "I gave Simmo a few choice words. It was bad enough the waiter having us on, but Jack was taking it too far."

Fifty year anniversary: When snow stopped play - Derbyshire v Lancashire at Buxton

Quote:The Zoot Suit Riots are commonly associated with the Sleepy Lagoon murder, which occurred in August 1942. The Sleepy Lagoon, as it was nicknamed, was one of the larger reservoirs outside the city of Los Angeles. On the night of August 1, 1942, zoot-suiters were involved in a fight at a party near the Sleepy Lagoon. The next morning one of the partygoers, José Díaz, was dead. There was public outcry against the zoot-suiters, fueled by local tabloids. Citing concerns about juvenile delinquency, California Gov. Culbert Olson used Díaz’s death as the impetus for a roundup by the Los Angeles Police Department of more than 600 young men and women, most of whom were Mexican American. Several of the zoot-suiters who were arrested were tried and, in January 1943, convicted of murder. However, many people denounced the circus atmosphere of the trial and attacked the verdict as a miscarriage of justice. The convictions of the Mexican American youths were later reversed on appeal in October 1944.

During the period from 1942 through 1943, the news media continued to portray the zoot-suiters as dangerous gang members who were capable of murder. On the basis of the news reports, more and more people began to believe that the Mexican American youths, particularly the zoot-suiters, were predisposed to committing crime. It was in this racially charged atmosphere that the conflict between predominantly white servicemen stationed in southern California and Mexican American youths in the area began. Incidents initially took the form of minor altercations but later escalated. Within months of the Sleepy Lagoon convictions, Los Angeles erupted in what are commonly referred to as the Zoot Suit Riots.

The riots began on June 3, 1943, after a group of sailors stated that they had been attacked by a group of Mexican American zoot-suiters. As a result, on June 4 a number of uniformed sailors chartered cabs and proceeded to the Mexican American community, seeking out the zoot-suiters. What occurred that evening and in the following days was a series of conflicts primarily between servicemen and zoot-suiters. Many zoot-suiters were beaten by servicemen and stripped of their zoot suits on the spot. The servicemen sometimes urinated on the zoot suits or burned them in the streets. One local paper printed an article describing how to “de-zoot” a zoot-suiter, including directions that the zoot suits should be burned. The servicemen were also portrayed in local news publications as heroes fighting against what was referred to as a Mexican crime wave. The worst of the rioting occurred on the night of June 7, when thousands of servicemen and citizens prowled the streets of downtown Los Angeles, attacking zoot-suiters as well as members of minority groups who were not wearing zoot suits.

In response to these confrontations, police arrested hundreds of Mexican American youths, many of whom had already been attacked by servicemen. There were also reports of Mexican American youths requesting to be arrested and locked up in order to protect themselves from the servicemen in the streets. In contrast, very few sailors and soldiers were arrested during the riots.

Shortly after midnight on June 8, military officials declared Los Angeles off-limits to all military personnel. Deciding that the local police were completely unable or unwilling to handle the situation, officials ordered military police to patrol parts of the city and arrest disorderly military personnel; this, coupled with the ban, served to greatly deter the servicemen’s riotous actions. The next day the Los Angeles City Council passed a resolution that banned the wearing of zoot suits on Los Angeles streets. The number of attacks dwindled, and the rioting had largely ended by June 10. In the following weeks, however, similar disturbances occurred in other states.

As the riots died down, California Gov. Earl Warren ordered the creation of a citizens’ committee to investigate and determine the cause of the Zoot Suit Riots. The committee’s report indicated that there were several factors involved but that racism was the central cause of the riots and that it was exacerbated by the response of the Los Angeles Police Department as well as by biased and inflammatory media coverage. Los Angeles Mayor Fletcher Bowron, concerned about the riots’ negative impact on the city’s image, issued his own conclusion, stating that racial prejudice was not a factor and that the riots were caused by juvenile delinquents.

Zoot Suit Riots